November 4, 2022 — The SF Jazz Ensemble will pay tribute to the USA’s original contribution to music history in the annual “Evening of Jazz” concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, in the Jackson N. Sasser Fine Arts Hall.
Tickets are $15 for adults; $9 for seniors, students, military service members, and children 12 and under; and free for SF students, faculty, and staff with college ID cards. Tickets are available from the Fine Arts Hall box office at 352-395-4181 or online from Showpass at showpass.com/sf-jazz-concert.
Associate Professor of Music, Band Director, and trombonist David L. Smith will conduct the ensemble’s 16 members, who will play with full instrumentation, including saxophone, clarinet, trombone, trumpet, and piano. “The program includes six selections of different styles and offers a snapshot of what bands were playing in dance clubs back in the 1920s and 1930s when jazz was first becoming popular,” Smith explained. “These are the kinds of tunes we talk about in SF’s Music Appreciation and American Popular Music courses when we talk about jazz as our country’s original musical art form—music that swings and includes call-and-response rhythms, solo improvisation and the quick communications that happen between musicians while they are performing.”
Opening the program is Chris Sharp’s “Mambo Jambo,” which Smith describes as “a great ensemble piece based on a series of riffs from Latin American rhythms, with each section of the band doing their own thing with one of the riffs, and then everyone coming together at the end to play a melodic line in unison.”
Also on the program is “Bernie’s Tune,” the 1950s swing standard by Bernie Miller that has been recorded by numerous musicians, including Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, and Art Pepper. “Sunday Morning Shuffle” by Pete McGuinness, which Smith describes as “hard bop” with an emphasis on blues, will feature the performance of two soloists.
“The audience will get a kick out of this program!” Smith exclaimed. “Expect nothing but professionalism from this group of students who have prepared for their concert all semester. Our goal is to have fun while we’re presenting jazz to the audience—because if we’re not having fun, the audience can’t have fun. And we encourage audience participation!”
“Evening of Jazz” is organized and sponsored by SF’s Fine Arts and Entertainment Technology Department.